Indian-American finishes first in Democratic primary in Texas 22nd dist

Houston, March 8

An Indian American has finished first in the Democratic primary in a congressional district in the US state of Texas, but will have to face a fellow party leader in the May 22 runoff to earn the right to take on the Republican candidate.

Sri Preston Kulkarni, 39, received 9,466 votes (nearly 32 per cent), while his fellow Democrat Letitia Plummer got 7,230 votes (24.3 per cent) in the Democratic primary in Texas' 22nd congressional district. There were five candidates in the race.

According to Texas election law, if a candidate does not get more than 50 percent of the votes, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers.

If Kulkarni emerges as a winner in the runoff, he will run against the incumbent Republican representative Pete Olson.

If elected, Sri will become the first Indian American congressman from the state of Texas. He is one of the nearly two-dozen Indian Americans who are running for Congress this year.

Sri, who raised more than USD 96,000 in campaign donations, is hoping that the demographic diversity of the district it is a majority minority district  will favour him. He told PTI that he was running because of the anti- American policies of the Trump administration. PTI